Trump say he has the power to "seize" ballots. But I co-wrote the order — and he's lying.
In an interview this week, the president said he wished he'd seized ballot boxes in 2020. However, he doesn't have anywhere close to the power to do so, as he claims.
In an interview this week, Donald Trump said he regrets that he didn’t “seize” ballot boxes after losing the 2020 election. That admission should be a wake-up call about what he may try to do in contested elections to come. But here’s the problem with his claim: I co-wrote the executive order that he says gives him that authority. And I can tell you, unequivocally, that it doesn’t give him any such power.
Trump and his legal flunkies have long pointed to a specific executive order as justification for such an act. He’s repeatedly suggested — sometimes explicitly, sometimes through allies — that this order he signed in 2018 gave him sweeping authority to intervene in elections, even perhaps allowing him to send troops in to seize U.S. voting machines and ballot boxes.
This is a big, fat lie. And I’d happily testify to that fact.
The order is Executive Order 13848, signed in September 2018. It was written in the shadow of Russian interference in the 2016 election, after the Intelligence Community concluded that a foreign adversary had mounted a sophisticated campaign to undermine confidence in American democracy. The goal of the order was very simple and urgent. We wanted to make sure that what Russia did in 2016 would never happen again, and that if a foreign power tried to meddle in our elections, the United States could respond swiftly and decisively with crushing sanctions.
That’s it. That’s all it does. Full stop.
I co-drafted the order alongside experts from DHS, DOJ, the Intelligence Community, and other agencies. The central idea was to make it easier for a president to impose real consequences on foreign actors who interfered in U.S. elections. NOT to revisit vote counts. NOT to rummage through ballot boxes. And certainly NOT to allow a president to deploy the military against local election infrastructure because he didn’t like the outcome.
What’s ironic is that Trump was annoyed we put the executive order in front of him. He didn’t want to sign it. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. But it probably has something to do with the fact that he didn’t want to punish Russia, certainly not for trying to help him win elections.
In any event, he’s now conveniently reinterpreting the order as some all-powerful election snooping tool. It is not. But you don’t need to take my word for it. You can read the order yourself. What’s more, I really think you should. Because in the wake of Trump’s comments this week, it sounds like at some point he’s going to trot out this argument again, claiming he has the power to Hoover up ballots across America wherever he doesn’t like the outcome of an election.
So let me just say one more time for total clarity: this is a lie of the highest order, and a stupid one at that.
From its very first paragraph, the order is explicit about the threat it addresses, namely “persons located, in whole or in substantial part, outside the United States” interfering in U.S. elections. It declares a national emergency based on foreign interference (e.g. cyber intrusions, propaganda, disinformation) by foreign governments or their agents. And it repeatedly and deliberately uses the word “foreign.” Not once does it authorize action against domestic election officials, state governments, or voting equipment operated under state law.
The core mechanism of the order is reporting and sanctions. Within 45 days of an election, the Director of National Intelligence is required to assess whether foreign interference occurred. DHS and DOJ then evaluate whether that foreign interference materially affected election infrastructure or vote tabulation. If foreign actors are found responsible, the Treasury and State Departments are empowered to impose sanctions by freezing bank accounts, denying visas, and taking other actions to punish the offenders.
Is that clear enough? The document does NOT confer domestic law-enforcement authority. It does NOT override state and local control of elections. It does NOT authorize the seizure of voting machines by the National Guard, or anyone else for that matter. I’d remember if we wrote something like that.
In fact, the order goes out of its way to do the opposite. It stresses the need to “maintain an appropriate separation between intelligence functions and policy and legal judgments” and emphasizes insulation from political bias. Indeed, the order explicitly states that nothing in it creates new rights or benefits or alters existing legal authorities — and certainly not a new “right” for presidents to go rummaging about in ballot boxes to see who you voted for or to slip a few extra ballots inside with a checkmark next to his name.
To conclude that it allows a president to seize voting machines to hunt for domestic “fraud” is a fantasy that, if acted upon by a president, should cause him to be vigorously prosecuted in a court of law.
Nonetheless, Trump’s comments are unsettling. When he says he “should have” seized voting machines in 2020, he’s not describing a lawful option that he prudently declined. He’s musing about an illegal act he wanted to commit and now regrets failing to carry out. In the interview, Trump implies that the only barrier keeping him from doing that was the National Guard, which he says wasn’t “sophisticated enough.”
The fool in the Oval Office is giving us a roadmap of what might come next.
The executive order still exists. Trump — and the people around him — have spent years mischaracterizing it as a kind of election skeleton key. In 2020, the White House cooked up draft executive orders that explicitly cited EO 13848 as justification for seizing Dominion voting machines. Those drafts were stopped by career officials and senior leaders who understood the law and refused to bend it. Will the guardrails hold if Trump tries again?
Elections are run by states, not by the president. But I’m writing this because I want the people who oversee election protection — the secretaries of state and their attorneys general — to wake up to what Donald Trump is saying. I want local prosecutors prepared to sue the pants off the Trump administration for even dreaming about laying their hands on ballot boxes. And I want you, the voters, to understand that the president doesn’t have this power and be ready to oppose him.
If Donald Trump brings this up during election season, he should be laughed out of the room, not given deference while folks look up old executive orders to see if he’s telling the truth. He. Is. Not. Democratic erosion happens through pressure, confusion, intimidation, and the abuse of ambiguity. Seizing voting machines, even briefly for “inspection,” is not only wrong but could delay certification and destroy public trust in contested areas. For Trump, though, the chaos would be the point.
EO 13848 was written to defend American democracy from foreign attack. Trump is trying to repurpose it as a tool to attack democracy from within; he’s telling us — plainly — that if he had a “do over,” he would push harder, go further, and worry less about the law. Let’s believe him. Let’s also be ready to fight like hell to protect our elections. And If Donald Trump tries to pull this stunt, I look forward to testifying against him, alongside scores of other people who served in his administration.
But we’re not going to let it get to that point. We’re going to do it differently this time. As we look toward the midterms, Americans shouldn’t just be waiting for hijinks after the results come in — and the president decides he’s unhappy with this. No, no, no. This time, we are going to go on offense far in advance to make sure our elections are free, fair, and protected from the meddling criminal inside the White House.
Your friend, in defiance,
P.S. WHAT’S HAPPENING ON DEFIANCE.NEWS
Here’s what’s coming up.
TODAY // DEFIANCE Daily, feat. best-selling author and former presidential candidate Marianne Williamson // 5p ET - We are going to be talking with Marianne about how to keep heart in dark times, how to find the courage to fight back, and what we can all do right now to protect our country. Watch LIVE on our DEFIANCE.News page, on our YouTube channel, or on my X account.
WHAT A WEEK - We’ll be having conversations on DEFIANCE Daily with…
WEDNESDAY: Congressional candidate George Conway (this is also our WEEKLY MISSION BRIEFING, where we’ll announce what action we’re taking this week to counter Trump’s abuses of power — don’t miss it)
THURSDAY: former GOP congressman and Jan 6 committee investigator Denver Riggleman
FRIDAY: legal analysis Matthew Wollin, who’s been tracking the ins and outs of Trump’s abuses of power.
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Thank you, Miles. Deep respect for insider's experience, and for your integrity in stepping out, showing up, and speaking up against an 'administration' drowning in illegality. We The People need and hear your Voice! Thank you.
Like a laser Miles. Thank you for this valuable information.